A Father's Failure
by Leraiv Snape
Summary: Rupert Giles reflects on his part in the death of Buffy Summers. Set directly after the end of season five.


Disclaimer: _Buffy the Vampire Slayer _belonged to the WB through the 5th season. No copyright infringement intended.

A/N: SPOILERS through to the end of season five. This is a bittersweet reflection from Giles's point of view following Buffy's death. Their relationship always had a father-daughter dynamic. These are his thoughts immediately following her funeral. Much of what is in italics is taken from various episodes – most of them in season five, but there are a few from the earlier seasons scattered throughout.

A Father's Failure

_Buffy Anne Summers_

_1981-2001_

_Beloved Sister_

_Devoted Friend_

_She Saved the World_

_A Lot_

"_You have a father's love for the child."_

Rupert Giles knelt, running his fingers blindly over the inscription, his hand finding its way alone after countless hours, the march of his digits matching Quentin Travers' condemnation of his affection for his ward.

But Travers had never trained a Slayer. As head of the Council, he had to keep himself "detached". And he had never understood the strength that the bond between Slayer and Watcher had granted both Buffy and Giles.

"_You never let them go,"_ Sam Zabuto had told him not so long ago, the shadow apparent in the other Watcher's eyes. _"Kendra died three years ago. The pain never goes, Rupert. You cover it, it buries itself, you learn to live without…and then you read something, hear something – a guitar chord, a section of research on some demon she fought, and the hole tears itself anew. You find yourself thinking of the things you must say when she breezes through the door, the training you want to give her, a warning you once forgot…"_

He wondered now, as he felt the sprinkler-wet grass soaking through his knees, staining the tweed a rich brown and green, if the agony would ever fade. Enough for him to draw a full breath without feeling the hitch of tears. Enough for him to stand for a day without wishing that he, too, could simply find his peace in the earth that had swallowed whole the only daughter he'd ever had.

"_Whose nightmare is this?" Xander asked as they stumbled on a fresh mound of earth, an engraved headstone coming into view. __**Buffy Summers, 1981-1997**__._

"_It's mine," Giles whispered, sinking to the manicured lawn._

Four years ago it had been just a nightmare. His grief had welled, real and striking as in the manner of dreams, but they had had a solution. They had known what to do, and Buffy had been returned.

This time, the nightmare was reality, and no clever trick, no piece of magic, no demon slain or boy awakened, would return her to him.

Would he ever lay to rest the memory of their first meeting in the library, the petite blonde running from him and the thick text he'd laid before her, her diminutive stature, high heels and cheerleader looks so different than the tough girl he'd expected? He'd been stunned by her air of still-child-like innocence, the purity of heart in her eyes, and the shocked denial of what she had to be.

"_Hello? Anybody here?"_

_The voice was just too…upbeat. Giles looked up from his reading and suppressed a sigh. It had sounded so logical in England – take the post of librarian for the local school and just wait for the Slayer to arrive. Access to all the books he needed, an office where weapons could be stored safe from prying eyes…_

…_and students. Who expected him to actually care where the Charles Dickens and Jane Austen were kept._

_The little blond now intently studying the newspaper he'd left on the counter didn't strike him as the scholarly type, and he was resigned to turning down yet one more request for the spark notes version of some classic a teacher had insisted they read. _

_He reached out to tap her shoulder. She jumped at the contact and spun. Quickly._

"_Anybody's here," she said, mustering a smile to cover her start._

"_Can I help you?"_

"_I was looking for some…well, books. I'm new."_

_It was his turn to startle, though he kept it to a surprised blink. This vinyl-pumps-and-short-skirt-clad girl was his Slayer? "Miss Summers?" he guessed, too shocked to hope to be right or wrong._

"_Good call," she answered, her surprise obvious. "Guess I'm the only new kid, huh?"_

"_I'm Mr. Giles." It was clear his name had no effect. She hadn't been told, then. "The librarian," he quickly continued. "I was told you were coming." He hurried to his desk. A Slayer. Finally. Someone to teach, to research with, to train…_

"_Great!" he heard her say. "I'm going to need perspectives on twentieth century—"_

"_I know what you're after." He pulled the thick tome from the under the counter and placed it before her, eyes fixed on her face in anticipation—_

_She stared at the heavy, leather-bound volume as if it were poisonous before she backed away, all peppiness in her manner disappeared. "That's not what I'm looking for."_

"_Are you sure?" Her reaction betrayed her – any other student would have burst into laughter or stared at him like he was mental, not fixate on the book as if might attack at any moment._

"_Way sure."_

_A long moment. But she didn't look likely to change her mind. "My mistake." And he put the book back under his shelf._

He had despaired for the next two hours of what he would do, living on a Hellmouth with a Slayer so clearly uninterested in her sacred Calling and the Harvest drawing nearer.

Then they had discovered the dead boy. And she had come to him – despite her token protests – as if it were natural, as if she should, as if she had always been able to confide in him.

"_I can't do this without you."_

"…_a father's love…"_

"_I need you to be my Watcher again." _

The shift from strangers to family seemed so…effortless, even as his early diary entries bore testimony to a slow development and a great deal of misunderstanding. He hadn't been able to remember those long-ago details for ages now. Like memories of early childhood, the incidents and transgressions of those first days were painted in vague brushstrokes. But he could recall the texture of her hair in sunlight, the way her smile changed from innocent sixteen to confident seventeen to worldly eighteen, the sound of her voice lilting with laughter, deepened with loss. Each painful discovery that while the world held wonder, it also held lifetimes of pain, and she had been born destined to carry it.

"_Nothing's ever simple anymore."_

"_I believe it's called growing up."_

"_I think I'd like to stop, please."… "Does it ever get any easier?"_

"_What? Growing up?"_

"_Yeah. Does it ever get easy?"_

…

"_What do you want me to say?"_

"_Lie to me."_

"_Yes, it's terribly simple. The good guys are always stalwart and true. The bad guys are always easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats, and we always defeat them and save the day. No one ever dies and everybody lives happily ever after."_

How long ago had he spoken those words? They had been in wry acknowledgment, in mockery of the Hollywood endings that peppered the screen, in the arrogant certainty that he had already seen much of the worst the world had to offer.

Spoken before he'd begun to conceive of the agonies living would bring.

"_In my years as Watcher, I have buried…too many people. But Jenny is the first I loved."_

And now she was the second. Losing Jenny had broken his heart. But Buffy…he wasn't sure he had a heart left. He felt cold, empty, as if his chest had been cracked open and all life-giving organs bloodlessly removed.

"_My spirit guide told me: death is my gift." _

_Then let it also be mine!_ the older man thought savagely. Jenny Calendar. Buffy Summers. _I have buried too many people._ The wife he'd never had, the daughter he'd always wanted.

The daughter he'd driven to self-sacrifice. The girl who had died herself to save her sister.

"_You are…everything…I could have hoped for."_ He had been so proud of her. So awed by how far she had come. Such a fool, focused only on her unfolding power, her growing knowledge…failing to understand what had really been at stake from the instant they had discovered that Glory was after Dawn.

If only he had died there, in the desert—

Footsteps behind him, graceless and clumsy

Black shoes at his back, black trousers leading up to a dark overcoat and the angelic face of a monster-turned-man, the murderer of Jenny Calendar, the only man Buffy had ever loved.

"_I sacrificed Angel to save the world. I loved him so much…but I knew. I knew I was right. I don't have that anymore. I don't understand how to live in the world if these are the choices. If everything just gets stripped away. I don't see the point." _

"Giles." The voice was low, uninflected, the sound of passionate violence unrelentingly leashed, and the former Watcher felt any residual anger vanish in the face of the vampire's obvious suffering.

"Angel."

"Willow—" He halted, his voice so thick it choked him.

"She went to Los Angeles." It wasn't a question.

"This morning. I came…as fast as I could…When she told me…" _You didn't believe it, _Giles thought numbly. _You couldn't let yourself. You _knew_, if you rushed, if you ran, that she'd be here, arms open and waiting…and alive. You would save her._

"How did she…she didn't…?" Grief had rendered the vampire incoherent.

"She didn't suffer," the Watcher whispered, rising, though his gaze remained fixed on the stone. "At least, not that we could see. It was…quick."

"What happened?"

"She jumped." The number one moment of many he'd give his life not to remember. A nightmare he'd never forget. That beautiful swan dive from the rickety tower, Dawn's dumbstruck, tear-streaked face lit by flashes of lightning. The graceful sail, blonde hair streaming behind her as she rode the rip Glory's minions had made, sealing the demon dimensions with that which was most precious: her blood. Her body draped, untouched and unscarred, across the ruins of their desperate battle, her pristinely white sweater a mockery of a shroud, untouched by the gritty violence that had engulfed them only seconds before.

"Jumped."

"Glory opened a portal between worlds. The Key unlocks all dimensions, not merely one. Dawn was the Key. Once her blood spilled, the door opened."

"They would have swallowed the world whole. Unless the blood stopped flowing." Not for the first time, the ex-Librarian was grateful for the many things he did not have to explain to Angel. The vampire had been through the heart of darkness and come out the other side. _"Of course it's blood," _Spike had explained baldly. Vampires knew.

"Buffy…" Giles winced at the roughness of her name on his tongue. "Buffy understood. That the blood was the important part, not the name. To save her sister, she jumped." It was unfair, the older man knew, but though Dawn had grown on him, he could not help his wish that it be her grave, and not Buffy's, that he stood in front of.

"_If Dawn dies…I'm done with it. I'm quitting."_ He should have seen months ago that it never would have happened. Buffy would never let her sister die, not when she had the power to prevent it. And if she had, she would no longer have been Buffy…

"And saved the world. Again."

"Again."

They stood in silence. Overhead, a bird began to warble its night melody.

"Where will you go?"

"Back to England, I suppose," Giles answered. He hadn't been able to force himself to think beyond the next breath yet. Buying a plane ticket meant adapting to a new world without her. Settling the shop, giving it to Anya, meant moving forward. Going away meant that she was really gone.

"If you'd like, you're welcome in LA," Angel offered awkwardly.

A painful smile broke on Giles' face and he finally looked at the vampire. Angel's features were cold, sculptural in the partial-moon light. Mourning had drawn his flesh tight against his cheekbones, regret darkened his eyes to blackness.

"Thank you. But we would rapidly tire of each other. I never trusted you again after Jenny's murder," Angel flinched visibly at this reminder of his bloodthirsty relapse, "and every time you looked at me, it would remind you of what we have both lost. The offer is well meant, but I think…without her…it's time to go home."

_Home_. An empty flat, an emptier life. Chronicling for the Council. Dealing with ancient men and their fossilized traditions. Becoming a relic himself. Old. Useless. Hollow.

_You can never be Watcher for more than one Slayer_. He had once thought the rule ridiculous – surely an effective Watcher should train several Slayers in succession? Now it seemed unthinkable. A new Slayer? A replacement? He could sooner replace the heart frozen in his chest.

"_Will you train her? Or will they send someone else?" _Buffy had asked him before she went to fulfill her first prophecy – the one predicting her death at the hands of the Master. That seemed a lifetime ago, when he'd still barely known her, was just beginning to skim the surface of the remarkable young woman she was becoming.

It had been only this year that he'd answered that question: _"I would imagine if they're anything like me they would find the subject too…" "Unseemly?" "…painful. Wouldn't have the heart." _Who would? They were irreplaceable. These brilliant, fiery young women who lived on the cusp of life and hurtled into the depths far too early.

"_Tell Giles I figured it out. And…and I'm okay. And give my love to my friends. You have to take care of each other. You have to be strong. The hardest thing in this world…is to live in it. Be brave. Live. For me."_

_She saved the world. A lot._ She was the Slayer. It was her duty. A duty _he _had merciless instilled in her from the day they met until this morning, when they'd put her in the ground.

"…_a father's love."_

_Forgive me, Buffy. I would have claimed you as my own. But it was _I _who led you to your six feet of earth. _Heart rent with pain, Rupert Giles turned silently and left Angel to his private anguish. He walked, until the night embraced the grave and the vampire standing in front of it, his feet hitting the pavement until they blistered with pain and finally numbed with endurance.

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A/N: As usual, please review and let me know what you think!


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